


easier

by bonebo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Hints at suicidal thoughts, M/M, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 06:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10870617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonebo/pseuds/bonebo
Summary: The jet came in silent over three hours ago, returning from the Blackwatch interrogation facility stationed in eastern Guatemala with agent Jesse McCree in tow. Gabriel wasn’t there to see the plane touch down--too busy in his conference call with one of their main confidants into Tokyo’s largest human trafficking ring--but coming back from the meeting’s end found Jesse’s report in a manilla folder at the center of his desk, and the young agent nowhere to be found.And so he had stayed, missing through the rest of the day; but it was only when McCree was noted absent at dinner that Gabriel decided it was time to go searching.





	easier

The jet came in silent over three hours ago, returning from the Blackwatch interrogation facility stationed in eastern Guatemala with agent Jesse McCree in tow. Gabriel wasn’t there to see the plane touch down--too busy in his conference call with one of their main confidants into Tokyo’s largest human trafficking ring--but coming back from the meeting’s end found Jesse’s report in a manilla folder at the center of his desk, and the young agent nowhere to be found.

And so he had stayed, missing through the rest of the day; but it was only when McCree was noted absent at dinner that Gabriel decided it was time to go searching.

When the practice range and McCree’s quarters had turned up empty, Gabriel broadened his search--and that’s how he comes to climb the rocky shore surrounding the Watchpoint at dusk, how he comes to stand beside the sitting figure he could recognize anywhere, even cast in gold and glare like he is now.

Jesse looks, for the most part, normal. His overall appearance is put-together and neat--his clothes clean, cloak smooth across his shoulders, hair brushed--but in all his time that he’s spent by the younger man’s side, Gabriel’s come to realize that it will forever be the little things that give Jesse away, when he’s trying to hide.

Like his hands, resting atop his thighs but squeezed so tight his knuckles are white. His nails are ragged things, bitten to the quick and then some, dried crimson flaky around his cuticles; Peacekeeper sits in his lap, gleaming in the dying sun. 

Gabriel sighs, and doesn’t miss the flinch that ripples through Jesse’s body.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he starts, softening his voice before dropping into a crouch by Jesse’s side; here, he can see the other man’s eyes, vacant and wet in the shadow cast by his hat, transfixed on the moving water beyond. “You missed dinner.”

Jesse glances at him, briefly--then turns his head away, like he’s ashamed to be seen. His gaze drops down to his hands, dark eyes watching bone and muscle move under his skin as he clenches and unclenches his fists. “...ain’t hungry.”

Gabriel knows it’s not really a lie, just as well as he knows why Jesse sought solitude. Guatemala had that effect on some people--and Gabriel can remember the nausea that came after the first time he watched a man’s tongue be pulled out through his teeth.

He hadn’t eaten for two days, afterward.

But this is Jesse, not Gabriel, and things don’t have to be the same; this is Blackwatch, his family of outcasts and misfits, and not the army, where he was but another piece to be moved around the board. 

Gabriel shifts his stance, sinking down to sit beside his Jesse and letting his thigh fall open against the other’s, a warm weight against his trembling muscles. He eyes Peacekeeper with a new kind of wariness--because he’s taught McCree well, taught him to never pull the weapon unless he fully intends to shoot, and out here in the dark and quiet there’s only one target. 

“You’re back now, Jesse. You’re home.” Gabriel slowly grabs for the gun, watches Jesse’s eyes watch him. He can all but taste the tension as Peacekeeper finds a new home in the grass by Gabriel’s far side, and can’t decide if Jesse letting him take his revolver without a word is a good or bad thing; he chalks the oddity up to a _Guatemala_ thing, to a shell-shock thing, and lays his free hand over Jesse’s. 

Knobby fingers clutch around Gabriel’s own like a trap, ensnaring him immediately in a grip so tight it almost hurts. With another soft sigh Gabriel pulls Jesse in against his chest, wrapping his arm around Jesse’s shoulders and pretending he doesn’t notice how they tremble.

“It gets easier, Jessito,” Gabriel says, to the quiet of the emerging night, his lips moving against Jesse’s temple. “Eventually. The names, the faces, the noises...it all becomes meaningless, after a while.”

There’s a shift under Gabriel’s arm as Jesse looks up, and there’s a new depth to his eyes, a tired, aged thing Gabriel can’t remember seeing before.

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

And together they sit, quiet now, as they watch the shifting river turn gold.


End file.
